Despite being populated by all four No. 1 seeds, Thursday's 2024 NCAA volleyball semifinals served up the bracket's biggest upsets, as heavily favored Nebraska and overall top seed Pitt were sent packing by their conference foes.
In front of 21,726 fans — a new record for college volleyball's postseason — Louisville shocked Pitt with a 3-1 victory before Penn State ousted Nebraska in a five-set instant classic.
Louisville books second national championship ticket
After dropping their first set to Pitt on Thursday night, it seemed the deck was stacked against the Cards, who had already lost twice to the Panthers in the regular season.
However, buoyed by their raucous home crowd, Louisville surged back, sweeping the next three sets to book their first trip to the national championship match since 2022, when they became the first and only ACC team to ever compete in the collegiate final.
As for Pitt, Thursday's loss was just their second all season, and not even 2024 AVCA Player of the Year Olivia Babcock's astounding 33 kills could extend their title chase. Notably, their national semifinal curse continues, with the Panthers now falling in the NCAA tournament's penultimate round for four straight years.
On the other hand, Louisville's victory was a true team effort, with three senior outside hitters — Anna DeBeer, Charitie Luper, and Sofia Maldonado Diaz — leading the offensive charge with 14 kills each.
The Cardinals' roster was also required to step up in unexpected ways. Just two points into the fourth set, Louisville star DeBeer crumbled to the court with an ankle injury and did not return to the match. The visibly shocked Cards looked to freshman Payton Petersen, who made a massive statement by recording two kills and four clutch digs to help seal the win.
"I wanted to do this for her," Petersen said of DeBeer. "She's meant so much to me."
Penn State roars back to top Nebraska
In Thursday's battle between two Big Ten titans, the message was clear: Never count out the Nittany Lions.
After falling behind the Cornhuskers 2-0 in what increasingly looked like an inevitable Nebraska victory, Penn State emerged from the brink of defeat to pull off the first reverse sweep of the Huskers in the NCAA tournament since 1982.
Following a 5-0 run that helped the Nittany Lions stay alive with a third set win, they flipped a 22-16 deficit into a match-point battle that ended the fourth set 28-26 in Penn State's favor. With the match now equalized, Penn State took control in the fifth, holding off Nebraska 15-13 to clinch their first championship trip since winning their seventh title in 2014.
Star Jess Mruzik led the Nittany Lions' charge with a 26-kill, 12-dig double-double, putting together what Nebraska head coach John Cook called "one of the best performances [he's] ever seen by an outside hitter."
Like Louisville's Petersen, freshmen also stepped up for Penn State, with Izzy Starck recording six key blocks and redshirt freshman Caroline Jurevicius hammering 20 kills against her former team, having transferred from Nebraska in December 2023.
As for the Huskers, their stacked roster showed out, with outside hitter Harper Murray leading the charge with a 20-kill, 15-dig double-double, plus three aces — the most by any player in either match on Thursday. Middle blocker Andi Jackson also had a standout night, putting together a near-errorless performance to finish with 19 kills.
Four-time All-American libero Lexi Rodriguez added program history to Thursday's mix, closing out her NCAA career as the Huskers' all-time digs leader with 1,896.
Sunday's court will make NCAA history
Louisville and Penn State's semifinal victories have guaranteed that Sunday's 44th NCAA volleyball championship match will go down in the history books.
With Dani Busboom Kelly leading the Cardinals and Katie Schumacher-Cawley coaching the Nittany Lions, a woman head coach will lift the national championship trophy for the first time.
Only two women have ever coached their teams into the college volleyball final, with Florida's Mary Wise doing so in 2003 and 2017 before Busboom Kelly followed in 2022.
For context, the last seven Division I basketball trophies came under women head coaches.
The fact that this glass ceiling still exists is partially due to volleyball having less women in head coaching positions than other NCAA sports. Less than half of Division I's 334 teams are led by a woman, while basketball boasts nearly 68% female leadership and softball claims almost 74%.
Busboom Kelly's ACC exceeds that 50% stat, but the Schumacher-Cawley remains one of only six women leading the Big Ten's 18 teams.
Both of Sunday's sideline leaders know what it takes to win the national championship, with Schumacher-Cawley taking the 1999 title while playing for Penn State and Busboom Kelly doing the same with Nebraska in 2006.
Even so, in some ways, this year's title will mean even more, as the coaches pave the way for future generations of volleyball leaders.
"[There’s] just honestly no better feeling than being led by a female because that could be me someday, that could be one of my teammates someday," Mruzik noted.
How to watch the 2024 NCAA volleyball championship match
Sunday's final won't just make women's coaching history, it could see Louisville earn the ACC's first-ever NCAA volleyball title. But to do so, the Cardinals, who fell to Penn State 3-0 in early September, will have to deny the Nittany Lions an eighth national championship.
NCAA volleyball will crown its Division I champion in Sunday's 3 PM ET match, with live coverage on ABC.
